


A Witch's Guide to Wit and Wickedness

by seunghyunnie



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Resbang 2020, brief mentions of the main kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 00:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30030567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seunghyunnie/pseuds/seunghyunnie
Summary: In his desperation to get as far away from his family as possible, Soul Evans accidentally finds himself in the apprenticeship of a witch. Eager to find his credit outside of the glamour of his family tree, he lets himself get whisked up in the mysterious witch's journey to a far-away festival.
Relationships: Maka Albarn & Soul Eater Evans
Kudos: 3
Collections: Soul Eater Resonance Bang 2020





	1. in which soul finds an apprenticeship

**Author's Note:**

> hello lovelies! i am so delighted to have worked with the modborg and my wonderful artists, nero and superdeaddude, to create this fic for the 2020 season of resbang. i hope you all enjoy reading! please check out the wonderful art on tumblr as well <3

Soon, it becomes a question of how easy it is to fuck trees. This is not particularly the sort of question Soul Evans can ask aloud; most especially not to his parents, who are bent before him as he slouches at his desk, mulling over one of the chords he’d written down. It is, however, a question he wishes he could ask when his parents once again engage in The Family Tree Lecture, because if you like talking about trees so much you might as well fuck one. His family must seemingly remind Soul of his identity every week as though they are following some odd ritual of affirmation – or, even worse, that they must remind him lest he forget that he belongs to the Evans.

The Family Tree Lecture is as follows: sure, you could call the Evans family tree just that – a tree. The mere notion of tree, however, is so easily misconstrued, really. If you were to speak a phrase so simple as “family tree” – why, Death forbid, picture all of the innocent people out there that imagine it as the common pine, elm, or maple. And then Soul’s mother – wrapped up today in smooth plum-hued silk, ears dripping with pearls the size of peach pits despite the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon and she had nowhere to be except his room, nagging him – gives him that sharp look with her taut, veiny hands creased into her hips, and she says pointedly, We don’t want people thinking that, Soul. To which Soul, feeling as though his life is scripted by some bored god, replies as he always does: No, no, never.

That response pleases his parents. They smile with white teeth and nod enthusiastically as though he’s offered them an entire treasury. With a flourish of their arms, they continue to drone about trees. It would be inappropriate to compare the Evans family tree to a maple, they say. We’re best compared to some flowering wisteria or a big, huge ginkgo (and at that point, Soul is nodding absently, scratching at his notebook with his pencil while muttering praises to all of the ginkgoes out there, which his parents love to hear). So the Evans are not a mere family tree, no; they a great, towering, venerable gingko tree with arms and arms of fruitful branches. No, his parents cannot just settle on a plain old tree.

Soul is ready for The Family Tree Lecture’s discussion of branches, too. Music courses through the blood of the Evans family, and each Evans forms a fruitful branch. His grandfather played the trumpet. His grandmother plays the French horn. His mother plays the harp, and his father plays the timpani. Wes, Soul’s brother, has mastered the violin. Soul plays the piano – but he’s no virtuoso pianist like his brother is with his violin. Yes, his brother is dubbed the Virtuoso Violinist, and the title certainly doesn’t sound cool in his humble opinion. Hearing anyone called something like the Virtuoso Violinist makes Soul wish he could shove whoever it is into a broom closet and lock them in there for a good while. Yet, he could never do that to his brother. Wes is older, taller, and admittedly deserving of such a grand title, since hearing him play keeps Soul still in his tracks, unable to divert his attention anywhere else but the heady trills of that little violin.

Contrastingly, Soul just plays piano good. It is very easy to sound good to people that don’t play the piano, he believes; you could drag your fingers over the keys and he is quite sure people would still somehow find the sound enchanting. The more he thinks about being so overwhelmingly average, his pencil careens and tears across his page, flailing wildly in his tight grip. He grumbles, rising to find another pencil on his shelf while his parents are still absorbed in talking at his bedroom’s doorway. Smoothing his hands over his pants, he sits back down at his desk and prepares for the final leg of the conversation, ready to reassure his parents that he is indeed aware that is an Evans; that they needn’t worry since he’s been practicing the piano; that he wears his brilliance with pride, yadda yadda. This, however, is when his parents conveniently decide to deviate from the standards of The Family Tree Lecture – and, in turn, make his life drastically, terribly, overwhelmingly bad.

In the land of Vadena, where the air is humid with thick, warm magical energy and trade work keeps each village humming with life, it is common for young people Soul’s age to take an apprenticeship. Everyone knows the latter years of your youth are the best time to take on work, and it is generally quite respectable to build up your skills in some sort of trade under somebody that is well-versed in it.

Soul Evans does not want to take an apprenticeship. He is most interested in playing the piano, and he doubts any other trade could keep his attention, so he solves his problem by avoiding all thoughts about his soon-to-be apprenticeship under somebody as though it were the plague – which, of course, left the problem to his parents to unearth.

“We know none of the other trades have seemed that interesting to you,” Soul’s mother says, wringing her hands as she slides herself into a seat atop his desk, crinkling some of his spare sheets under his butt. He squints at her. “And your piano-playing has been improving so much. We figured it would be appropriate to arrange for you to continue with us – as an apprentice, and not just an Evans, you know.”

Soul blinks. “Huh?” And blinks again. Somehow, blinking does not suddenly activate some hidden time-reversing power like he wants it to.  
“I doubt you’d have to study too long, Soul.” His father nods, scratching at his chin in thought. He is also dressed to the tens with a fine tailcoat on as though it will impress all of the books in the lounge he will inevitably spend most of his day in. “You have such a grasp of music theory already, and there probably isn’t much else you’d have to learn when it comes to the piano. We would probably just be doing a little finessing.”

Now Soul is blinking until his eyes are watering, and still his parents are not admitting to any sarcasm or jokes. He swallows thickly, as though it might produce a number of well-articulated words and phrases in his mouth. It does not. He exhales before giving the driest “Oh, really?” he’s ever heard anyone say in his entire seventeen years.

“Of course,” his mother says immediately. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful? You’ll be able to join the rest of us on stage, here at the music hall. Playing alongside your brother! You’ll be the . . . Virtuoso Pianist”– Soul is confident he turns green at the mere suggestion –“or, well. That doesn’t sound right, does it?” Soul would like to say no, not whatsoever, not ever actually. “Maybe the Perfect Pianist has more of a ring to it!” She laughs shrilly with his father, the type of laughs that only villains have in books and stage dramas – a very snotty ohohoho. Perhaps it’s fitting, since Soul is feeling considerably antagonized.

Perfect Pianist. Soul tries to picture it like his parents do; his mother’s fingers fluttering along the harp strings, his father standing at the back with the timpani. Wes stands in the center, stock-straight with the violin in his golden hands, at his chin, like he was meant to be that way. Soul tries to add himself in. He’s seated at the piano, fingers poised above the keys. One finger sinks into a key, and the sound is confusing and discordant. He presses another. There is a messy, discordant jumble of notes that follow; suddenly, he’s pounding his hands along the keys, trying to stop the cacophony of noise, and – what do you know, the piano is actually falling from the ceiling, and he crashes right along with it through the floor of the music hall, and the entire audience stands just to glare down at him through the splintered wood, and they’re all yelling at him, oh Death someone is spitting on him, and Wes is simply staring down, and – 

No, if Soul is to be completely honest, he really does not want to fall through the floor of the Evans Music Hall and get spit on. In all of his desire to avoid his career as a pianist tumbling through the ground, his mouth works out an excuse before his brain can verify: “Actually, I can’t be an apprentice here. I already signed up for one.”

This is, of course, a lie.

“Really?” his parents quip in unison; there is a mixture of surprise, wariness, and hurt in their voices that makes him wince.

“Yes,” he says, like a liar.

“Oh.” His mother slips off of his desk, suddenly crestfallen. “That’s nice, I suppose. I just – we just thought you – the, the piano.”

“I know.” Soul cards a hand through his alabaster hair, standing from his chair as though he has never operated legs before. He is not sure where to go or how he should be moving, but he is certain that he should not be in his home, so he walks out of his bedroom to fetch his shoes by the front door. His parents waddle after him like ducklings.

“Sorry I didn’t say anything before. I’d honestly forgotten about it until you brought it up. And, um, I should probably pack all of my stuff since those apprenticeships are starting soon. And I have one. That I need to be at. In residence. And I need to get a case to put everything into. So, uh.”

Soul has hardly stepped into his brown brogues and is just out of sight of the Evans Music Hall when he doubles over himself, face thrown into his hands to muffle the many anguished grunts that leave his mouth all at once, as though vomiting all of his regrets up into one pained groan. He lied to his parents. He lied to his parents near the end of application season, when he would be unlikely to find another apprenticeship to sign up for at the last minute and henceforth turn his excuses into the truth. This leaves Soul with one choice: commit to the bit and don’t go home until he miraculously finds one straggling apprenticeship notice. Straightening back up, he rolls his arms and pops his shoulders before walking into town. This is when Soul enters Manifestation Time. Marching along the flagstone, Soul manifests a slip of paper on the town notice board calling for a last-minute apprentice. He can’t be the only avoidant bastard around this place; surely there’s a mentor that waited until the very last second to get things done, too.

Beneath the afternoon town, the town is bustling. It’s a neat place where the squatting terracotta buildings look as though they’ve sprouted out from the ground, sitting somewhat crooked. Circles of trees shroud the square, leaving only needles of light to poke through the canopy of leaves. The square is framed mostly by businesses, like the forge where the blacksmith does all of her smithing outside in the tepid air, or the patissier’s shop where he stands outside offering samples and cooing compliments at everybody who tries one. The notice board stands in the center of the square, a step in front of the huge dogwood tree that blooms white. Surrounding it, bards play their instruments for coins and the local ladies chat animatedly with their friends as they stroll beneath the trees.

Soul is unable to decide whether he actually wants to see the board or not. It leaves him in an awkward little mix of trudging and jogging along the street, making him look like he’s trying to move quickly but he’s just sprained both of his ankles. He nods his brief greetings to various townsfolk in passing before reaching the notice board at last. Shoving his balmy hands into the pockets of his tweed trousers, he draws in a long breath with his eyes screwed shut – offering up one last hopeful manifestation – before blowing his carmine eyes open and searching. Decree from the mayor. Notice for an upcoming festival. Flyer for the Evans Music Hall (which he remembers putting up, actually). A meditation event. A contemplative memo. And – 

A witch.

Hesitant, Soul tears the notice down. It’s a witch in the mountains. His one opportunity for salvation from the mess he’s sorted himself into is a magical being far, far away. Magic certainly isn’t uncommon, nor is it looked down on anymore, either, he reminds himself.

It’s just a lot of work.

This is his punishment for procrastinating, he tells himself, wrinkling the notice in his sweaty palm. He thinks about how often he would be running around at the beck and call of some tall, shadowy witch. And – just consider how explosive magic is. He could – he could explode there. Or the witch could set the whole place on fire, and Soul would die from the panic of it all faster than he would the smoke. Maybe she’ll curse somebody, and it turns out he helped her get the . . . frog eyes or something he doesn’t know how that stuff works, and then they both have to run around with targets on their backs. Unintentionally stepping into a world of crime and danger – a big witch mafia circle. And then Soul shoves the paper into his pockets, and he thinks. And thinks. And thinks.

It would be kind of cool to die that way, being chased around for magically screwing with people. He is too amused by the idea of transforming people into gerbils to acknowledge how receptive he currently is to dying by magic. By Death, he ain’t the only avoidant one, and that is all that’s important. So, smirking, he starts off to mail his response to the Witch Maka’s call for an apprentice.

The Witch Maka resides in Death Village, settled prettily at the foot of the mountains. When Soul searches for it on a map, he finds it to the south of his town, a very comfortably far distance from his own town. His parents pay for his train ticket and bid him sadly goodbye, swaddled together in their annoyingly fine dress. When he departs for the train station, his brother escorts him in a heavy bout of silence, broken only when Wes asks, “Are you still going to play?”

“Huh?” Soul looks up to him.

“The piano, I mean.”

“Oh. Um, I don’t know if she’ll have one there, so.”

Wes smiles. Soul does not like that. He watches his brother’s fingers shift around the buckle of Soul’s case full of his belongings, roseate eyes following the way Wes’ gaze casts off into the flowering distance as though he’s the valiant teen protagonist in a novel while the wind blows rather conveniently through his platinum locks. When Wes’ eyes return, his head tilts, pointed to beam down at Soul.

“I hope you’ll continue. You played well; I loved listening to whatever you played.”

Damn it all. He’s blinking again, this time without the intent to go back in time. Soul mutters his thanks and stares determinedly ahead, attempting to ignore the persistent, uncomfortable heat that rises and flares in his eyes. Sniffles a bit. If Wes notices, he surely doesn’t indicate it, instead returning to his comfortable, easy, smiling silence.

When he at last reaches Death Village following hours of napping on the train, Soul realizes that he is perhaps too absorbed in the idea that he will be working with a witch. In his mind, Death Village is a place steeped in permanent, wispy shadow, where the grey ground is poked with the blackened stalks of dead trees and each building looks maliciously haunted or abandoned. And cobwebs. Lots of cobwebs. He was not excited about that thought. Thankfully, the actual Death Village has an artful elegance and beauty to its appearance; it lays in a crater at the mountain’s feet, flocked by a ring of grand forest. The buildings lie in grassy clearings at different levels, with white brick stairs carved into the lanes of the rising earth. A bubbling stream cuts through the village and wraps around it, leading eventually into springs. There are houses arranged to the village’s left while markets, businesses, and government buildings are to the right. When Soul asks one of the townsfolk for the residence of the Witch Maka, they point him to the right, directing him to a pretty building with a draping violet awning above the door, glittering beads hanging down from the violet fabric.

Coming up to the door, he knocks softly before opening, a bell tolling above him. The interior of the shop defies his expectations just as the village did; the whole place seems to crawl with bookshelves, and a lot less ominous steam and potions and creatures. A girl – who Soul guesses to be a year or two younger than him – sits at a checkout counter, reading and scribbling notes into the margin of her book. He clears his throat for her attention, and she shuts the book with an eager smile.

“Sorry for interrupting you,” he says. “Are you just, um, standing in for Witch Maka? Is she out right now? Or are you an apprentice, too?”

The girl drags a long inhale with a dragon-like flare of her nostrils, brows furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“I can wait,” he adds quickly, searching for a remedy to her apparent newfound anger with him, “for the witch to come back, if you don’t mind having me around. Is she your older sister or something?”

“I . . . am the witch?”

“No way.” He looks her up and down, gaze continuously returning to her girlish pigtails, tied neatly with ribbons as though her mother dresses her in the morning. “You look so . . . I don’t know, like a little girl?”

He does not mean for it to be offensive, honestly. The last he expects is for the statement to be taken as an offense. Soul concludes that he should stop expecting things from people and places, because the girl hits him on the head with the spine of her book. She glares flames into his skin, and he writhes under her stare while rubbing at his new, tender wound.

“I AM THE WITCH!” Fishing through her pockets, Maka produces a round golden badge bearing her countenance and a lot of complicated-looking writing that Soul does not presently have the heart to analyze. “That’s ME, you nitwit!”

Huh. Suddenly, he is a lot more afraid of the neat-looking girl and her evil, evil book. This is, perhaps, his first encounter with magic, he supposes.

(It was not. She is just absurdly strong, and is especially so with a book, he notes later.)


	2. in which soul becomes an errand boy

The Witch Maka is not nearly the neat-looking girl which she appeared to be when Soul first made his fateful march into her shop. Soul discovers very quickly that she does not appreciate being referred to by her full title, Witch Maka – “it feels like you’re calling me by my full government name, it’s strange,” she’d told him – and that she doles a heaping amount of effort into appearing a neat-looking girl. He sits at a workbench littered with flowers, staring distractedly at her as she flits to and from bookshelves and tables cluttered with sprawling lists. For a moment, he thinks that she’s doing a fine job of portraying herself as some proper sixteen-year-old lady, the way she holds her quill so elegantly between her fingers and marks along her parchment. He can confirm that she is not that pleasant little lady when she trods over, folding into a seat next to him and depositing her legs unceremoniously into his lap. She drops her limbs with such heavy force that it sends his organized vials rolling off of the bench, and the swirl of her flouncy viridian skirts blows away the piles of flowers he’d arranged.

“Oh, come on,” Soul grunts. Maka hums idly as he bends and ducks past her bare, wiggling feet to collect all of his lost work from the floor, not bothering to glance up from the list in her hands. Suddenly, Soul wishes Maka was the shadowy, scary witch that he’d first imagined her as.

“You’re still working on that?” she asks, voice airy from all the organizing that she doesn’t need to do. “It feels like it’s taken you all morning.”

“Now that I’ve lost all of my work, yes, I’m still working,” he says begrudgingly, pinching a few flower petals too hard when he fishes them out. He has red fingertips when he checks. “And I started half an hour ago, you know. I’m not exactly trained to do this stuff.”

“Flower-picking?”

Groaning, he returns sulkily to his work. Maka at last peeks over the edge of her scroll; she eyes his clumsy pianist hands with a pensive gloss to her green eyes, finally setting her list down with a short sigh.

“Alright, silly.” She slides her legs away and scoots over, and Soul hastily makes room for her. “Watch this. These red ones are the hibiscus petals. You can pair them with these little heart-shaped white ones – those are primrose – because they’re both meant for life and youth.”

Soul scrambles, snatching the list and quill that Maka set down to scribble notes on the back. “Waitwaitwait, hold on, I wasn’t ready –”

Maka does not wait. She plucks up a branch of pretty purple buds and tosses it into her growing pile. “You can add lilac to the pile. That’s a youthful flower, too. So with that there’s one pile, and that customer asked for it to be powdered, so you’ll have to bring out the mortar and pestle.”

“Mortar and pestle, uh-huh – where’s the mortar and pestle.”

“Our next client requested a standard brew. She’s going to be a mother, so.” Soul realizes the curious silence hanging in the air when his quill at last stills. He does not like it. It reminds him of the sort of silence that preludes his piano recitals, when the audience would settle into an anticipatory hush and stare with eager, hungry eyes as he flexes his fingers over the keys – the quiet before he flings himself over the edge, tumbling over the hills and ridges of cadenzas and chords. When it’s himself, he can keep up with the way his stomach flips with adrenaline, letting his music move his arms, his hands.

Contrastingly, he cannot keep up with Maka, and Death, does she send him tumbling.

Maybe she has speed magic, Soul thinks, watching her hands move dexterously to assemble piles, mouth moving at the same speed as her fluttering fingers. “Lilies,” she says as she pulls apart the long, curling petals of one white flower, “for motherhood and purity. A sprig of goldenrod for fortune; a stem of white hyacinth for the lovely baby and to give well wishes. Mind grabbing me the thyme hanging by the herb shelf?”

He is still struggling to keep up with her; his eyes are engrossed in the way she picks at the flowers fast as a rabbit, plucking them off of their stalks and tossing them so casually in a pile without even looking up at him to ask her question. For the briefest moment he feels inclined to believe her hands are meant to fiddle delicately with flower, but he’s been hit with her huge, fat tomes enough times to know that that is what she’s meant for.

But mayhap, he muses, she has a natural neatness to her.

Maka’s hands stop. She looks up at him, brow arched. He looks at her, eyes blown.

“Did you say something?” Somehow, asking this makes Soul feel like an absolute buffoon. He is rather used to that sort of feeling around Maka, now.

Scoffing, Maka rolls her eyes and gathers the second pile she’d created into the well of her hands. “I understand if this takes you a minute, Soul. This is beginner witchcraft, though, outside of every witch’s specialty magic – so you really don’t have to work yourself up over it. Now can you please get some thyme?”

And Soul replies “Yes,” blinking like an automaton and uttering mechanically like an automaton. He makes sure not to move like one as he shuffles over to the mahogany shelf stocked with labelled jars of herbs and spices, untying one of the bundles of thyme dangling from its hooks. When he returns to the bench, she snatches it immediately. Deep inside, he knows that what she’s doing isn’t anything special, but he’s so confused and mystified watching her that what she does feels magical. Without showing an ounce of thought to her actions, she drags her pinched fingers down the thyme sprigs, shucking the leaves off in one clean swoop.

Maka’s prepared a cauldron, he notices, and the thyme drifts down into its bubbling contents. “Finally; thyme, for strength,” she says. “Why don’t you start crushing the first pile? I can finish this potion while you finish that.”

Yet all Soul wants to do is watch her, the same way children gather around him or Wes and gawk in wonder as they play a meager Chopsticks or Amazing Grace. For some reason, she rolls her draping, bellish sleeves up to her elbows, and – by the gods, she plunges her arms right into the cauldron. He is not eager to let her catch his reaction, because he can feel his mouth and his temple twisting in anguish watching her strange form of witchcraft, so he swivels around and makes quickly for the mortar and pestle.

Vaguely, Soul recalls when Maka first instructed him how to make powders with the mortar and pestle, so he adds sugar and a packet of drying powder into the mortar with the first pile of petals before working on it with the pestle. He angles himself so he can watch what the witch does while mushing the hibiscus, primrose, and lilac. Maka’s angled her head down at the cauldron, so he can’t see her expression, but boy can he see the cauldron. She somehow turns what was water and flower petals into liquid gold aglow with magic; it illuminates the room, golden light playing across her dark cabinets and sage-green walls, stretching towards Soul’s chest, swaddling around Maka like wings. Eyes wide with the feeling of intruding on something sacred, his gaze snaps down towards the mortar and makes his powder with renewed interest. Wow, what a neat color that combination of flowers makes. Powder is so neat. This is fine. He is not stressed about whatever it is Maka is up to, really. Truly.

When Soul approaches with his vial of powder, Maka thrusts her potion bottle into his other hand. The mixture in it no longer glows, but it does still keep its gleaming, pearlescent gold color.

“What did you, um.” Holding the bottle up to his eye, he swishes the potion around, watching the radiant liquid curve against the sides of the glass, free of petals and thyme. “How did you turn it into this?”

“Magic,” Maka states, padding past him with a soft pat to his back. “I bind it all together and give it its magic. Make it, you know, a potion. I need you to deliver these for me. If you can, pick up some more flowers.”

Right. He is an errand boy now.

The powder Soul delivers to an older woman whom Maka only refers to as Auntie, and she seizes it eagerly, uncorking it immediately to smooth some of the substance over her knotted hands. She offers her brief thanks and slinks away into her house. Soul is very happy to leave her doorstep, stepping off of it and departing before Auntie can close the door. The potion goes to the Boyd family; he crosses the bridge leading to Death Village’s neighborhoods and knocks curtly on their door. It’s a warm spring in Death Village. It isn’t long, walking along the neat roads weaving through the town, swarmed by an unusual spring heat, before Soul has to stop to cuff his trousers and roll up his sleeves. He’s thankful for the headband keeping some of his hair off of his face – and, as the Boyd family opens the door on him, he is no longer thankful for the headband, let alone his hair.  
Suddenly, Soul is very conscious of who he is. This is, perhaps, to make up for the Boyds, who make it starkly aware that they do not know who he is, and furthermore find what they do know of him quite strange. Soul feels the urge to card a hand awkwardly through his scalp, but he has no desire to draw their attention any more to his hair after the family’s initial impression. They’d opened the door to him, looked him up and down, lingered on his hair and his eyes, and went, “oh.” Soul adds “oh” to the list of things he hates more than the Family Tree Lecture.

“Your potion,” he says gruffly, clearing his throat. “From the Witch Maka.”

Mr. and Mrs. Boyd seem to light up then, Maka’s name enveloping them like a safety blanket. Soul watches Mrs. Boyd as she allows herself to lean excitedly forward in the doorway. “Thank you so much,” she chirps. “I’m due soon, you see.”

“. . . Cool. Have a nice day.”

Soul files away ‘Mrs. Boyd is due soon’ in his library of things he knows for some reason. The due date, his hair, his eyes – it is the least of his concerns. With two-thirds of his errands finished, he can return to the overwhelming thought that began to occupy his morning with the events of the morning.

Soul Evans is now the witch Maka Albarn’s errand boy more than he is her apprentice. The fact of this which is the most gravely offensive to him is how strangely compelled he feels to run her errands. This can have only one explanation, he concludes: he has been cursed by Maka. He considers his newly cursed state while looking through the florist’s tulips. When could he have been cursed, he wonders while picking an orange bouquet wrapped up in brown paper, the same color as Maka’s skirts. What motive does Maka have to curse him, he asks himself as he – oh, that’s a very nice bouquet, chock-full of flowers that unfurl pink and white.

See, he’s improving at flower-picking.

Maka already has another order for Soul to prepare when he returns to the shop. She sends him to the back while customers float through the front room, browsing the wares. He places the bouquets he’d bought carefully into watery vases, setting them down on the windowsills between Maka’s teeming bookcases. Alone in the back of the shop, he lets himself look through said bookcases. A witch is bound to have books about curses, he figures. His fingers skirt along the spines, tracing the words etched into them: ‘The Complete Book of Witchery for the Beginner Witch,’ ‘Grimoire,’ ‘For Practical Practicing Witches,’ ‘Eibon’s Study of Magick, Property of the Royal Gallows Library.’ Soul hums, curious, and draws the last book from the shelf.

It’s a thick tome that weighs heavy in his hands. The edges are gilded with clean gold, and the cover is raised with a great golden skull. He recognizes it; it’s the simple, round skull icon belonging to the Gallows Kingdom. The spellbook is very important-looking. For that reason, Soul concludes that this is where Maka has retrieved his curse for him, so he stores it away in his brand new desk’s big, huge drawer.

Maka appears in the doorway with a clack of her short heels. “I need you to cut up some ginger for this potion,” she says, wandering to the bouquets Soul set out. “You got amaryllis? These are perfect. You can add these when you’re done with the ginger.”

She leaves him a stem of amaryllis and a fat ginger root at the workbench before wandering back out to the front. Pouting, Soul approaches the bench and takes up the paring knife lain on the cutting board. How are you supposed to cut ginger? It’s so lumpy, it’s scary. Do you cut the skin off first? Is that skin? He sighs, spins the root in his hands, and drops the ginger with determination. Raises the knife. Stares down at the ginger.

Sets down the knife very gently, without determination.

“You can cut ginger, Soul,” he mutters to himself. “Everyone can cut ginger. It’s cool to cut ginger. HOOOOOO. Okay, breathe quieter. And – cut.”

Soul does not know how to cut ginger, apparently, because he tries and he cuts himself on the blade. His blood, dark and oozing, doesn’t spill down onto the cutting board, but gathers in a dense coat around the nick, clinging desperately to his finger like a toddler to their mother. It doesn’t hurt, no, but he is now reasonably disconcerted as he stares down at the armor of blood circling his finger.

“Hey, Maka? I cut my finger,” he calls out.

“Get a bandage!”

A bandage doesn’t seem like the solution to him, given that his finger doesn’t necessary bleed; his blood is just adhering. Maka usually knows more about generally Most Things than him, however, so he obeys her instruction and fishes through the drawers for bandages. Maybe her bandages are cursed the same way he is. Soul hopes, binding his finger with gauze until he’s numb, that the two curses can cancel each other out like math.


	3. in which soul is no longer an eater

There is a list of reasons why Soul must be cursed that he begins to tally up mentally: he tolerates Maka (when she should otherwise be quite intolerable, he’s sure), he tolerates all of Maka’s dumb errands without question, and he tolerates Maka’s dumb errands in an incredibly high volume. Now, seated at the front of the shop to attend on customers, Soul finds himself unable to even idly tap his fingers on Eibon’s Study of Magick, let alone look at its pleasantly shining cover for longer than five seconds without washing over in stressful sweats. Swiping his clothed arm across his drenched temples, he grimly adds another entry to his mental list of reasons: he has been cursed to be inexplicably and overwhelmingly afraid of this book. It makes perfect sense; Maka is quite fond of books – he glances up disdainfully at that, eyeing the rows of oaken shelves chock-full of fat tomes and spellbooks, lined up neatly like soldiers with illuminated spines glittering like shields. Yet, eyeing those books – Soul would not hesitate to manhandle them, but still cannot lift a hand to the dumb spellbook. That can only be the work of a curse, and he has it all worked out in his head: Maka got her super-powerful curse from this super-powerful spellbook, and cast some weird magic on it to keep Soul from being able to stomach its presence.

He almost misses greeting one of the entering customers, too busy patting himself on the back because it’s what he deserves. However, he certainly misses Maka swooping in from the back room, honing in on him with a wide grin.

“Hey!” she chirps, peeking down at him with blown eyes, hands thrown to her mouth in surprise. “What are – are you . . . reading? Is that one of my spellbooks? Are you studying, Soul?!”

Immediately Soul sweeps Eibon’s spellbook off of the counter, shielding it carefully in his lap with indignant roses blooming in his cheeks, brow wound unhappily tight because even if he was studying, it shouldn’t be that shocking to her, thank you. “Hell no,” he splutters, pulling his coat off and tossing it across his legs. “Not a – not a chance in hell. It’s just, uh, a book about piano stuff that you wouldn’t like.”

Maka’s brow arches at him and all of his cold sweating. She sighs dismissively, taking instead to leaning her hip against the counter and watching him in scrutiny. “Okay then. I didn’t know you played piano, or that you were really interested in that kind of stuff,” she says, and quite unfortunately, she sounds excited. “So how come I’ve never heard you play?”

“You don’t exactly have a piano lying around, do you?”

“Huh. I guess not.”

Soul glances off out the windows, scratching his cheek and avoiding meeting Maka’s gaze. “Well, it’s not just that – although, I mean, it definitely doesn’t help at all that you don’t have a piano. I’ve just been taking a break from it; not just playing, but . . . all of it, in general. It’s, um, a family thing.”

Soul suspects that Maka’s eyebrows might abandon ship from her forehead. “Does your whole family play?” she asks, voice pitched with interest.

Aw, shit, that’s right. He didn’t exactly have to mention any of that in his application, so the Evans had been rather conveniently buried in his mind – but now, he’s a big idiot that’s brought them back to the forefront. “No, they don’t all play piano, but they all play instruments, yeah. I’m the only one that plays piano.”

“Really?! What do they play?!” Maka slams her hands onto the counter, leaning forward in exuberant curiosity. Soul cranes his neck away with a grimace.

“Um. My brother plays the violin, and my mom plays the harp, and my dad can drum,” he says. With a sigh, he straightens up in his attempt to release all of his tension. “Alright, listen. We’re kind of a well-known family. We’re . . . the Evans.”

With all of the dramatic flourish that Soul painfully mustered up, when he chances a glance at Maka for her reaction, his heart drops numbly into the hollow pit of his stomach, tossing around like a marble in a well. She’s doing His Blink – the same blink he uses when people ask him about his brother back home, or when his parents begin the Family Tree Lecture. Glassy green hues blink owlishly at him. And blink. And blink. Squirming in his chair, Soul swears that each time Maka blinks at him, her grasp on his nervous heart, still swimming in his stomach, tightens more and more, as though she wants to squeeze pulp out of the pitiful little thing.

“. . . Who? No, wait – I knew your last name couldn’t have been Eater. Ha!” She claps her hands together triumphantly, like she’s won some invisible bet. “That was way too gauche! Anyway, who?”

Ah, how each of her words strike Soul like a hot iron.

He huffs. “Okay, no, my last name isn’t actually Eater, but it sounds cool. That’s why I wrote it–”

Maka, rolling her eyes and folding her arms: “No way that sounds even remotely cool! If I hadn’t been desperate for an application, I would have tossed your’s out right after reading your dumb name.”

Soul, yanking exasperatedly at his hair, gesturing wildly: “DUMB? Tossed it OUT?! I thought that last name was pretty WITCHISH.”

Maka, gesturing wildly now as well: “Do you think that we’re all a bunch of BARBARIANS?!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know what I was getting into?! I haven’t exactly grown up around witches, have I?”

“Yeah, uh-huh. Whatever, Eater. If that’s even your real name.”

“You KNOW it’s not. What is the point of you doing that when–”

Soul, for the first time in exactly seven years, is put in timeout. Maka sends him to the back, where he begrudgingly sorts through dragonfly wings, cat’s tear orbs, toad warts, and wasp shells with the tiniest pair of tweezers that Maka could find. He’s dropping cat orbs into a teeny-tiny jar, grumbling with each light clink of the smooth amber beads against the glass, when Maka stomps into the room with her head raised disdainfully. Peering around the room, wiping her finger along a dusty shelf, she pokes, “Are you done yelling?”

Slumping into his propped palm, Soul resumes his grumbling, plucking up one of his cat orbs with more force. “I think I’ve been done, Maka. Sorry for yelling ‘n everything.”  
“Right.” She nods idly, trailing over to him slowly. “I guess I was pretty bad, too. Yelling at you and being mean and everything. I’m sorry.” Maka lifts one of the jars between her fingers, shaking around its dragonfly wings before delicately pushing its cork into the lid. “And I’m sorry if I was prodding back there, too. I know you were uncomfortable talking about it, and I still pushed you to tell me everything just to yell at you. Sorry.”

Brow arched, smirk drawn, Soul watches Maka as she apologizes, doing every menial task her blind eye notices to avoid looking at him. The jars she holds trembles in her shaky fingers. He breathes out a laugh, setting down his tweezers. “Hey, hey, hey – it’s cool, don’t worry about it. We were both jerks. And, uh – I was uncomfortable, yeah, but honestly . . .” Folding his arms behind his head, he leans back in his chair, tilted into the wall. “I dunno. I think it feels a lot better that you don’t know who we are. Somehow, it’s kind of comforting, like there’s no pressure or anything. So maybe some time in the future, I can play for you.”

Maka seems ready to bounce around, the way she rocks up and down on the balls of her feet with Soul’s newfound admission. Her movement is far more restrained compared to how much she was in his face earlier, but heady excitement still glows on her face. “Great!” she cheers. “I hope we can find some time soon for you to play, then. But for now . . . I have another errand for you to run!”

Sigh. And so he returns to the life of the meager errand-boy.

Shifting to his feet, Soul nods dismally “Yep. Of course. How come you’ve got me doin’ so many errands, anyway? Feels like I know more delivery routes than I know anything about witch stuff. I thought I’d be casting spells or something.”

Maka laughs, and somehow it’s a relieving sound to hear. “You’re not the witch here, y’know! Why would you be the one casting any spells? Anyway, I’ve been trying to take a whole bunch of orders from people so we can have lots of money to go toooo . . . the Gallows Kingdom! For their annual festival.” Now she really does bounce around the room, gathering up a stack of letters bound together in neat ribbon. “So you just need to deliver these; nothing big this time. They’re charmed letters, so my magic will work as soon as they read it!” And, because she loves talking about her own magical achievement she adds, giggling, “it’s a neat little spell for a protective ward. I think it’s my best work yet. And we’re getting paid really well for this one!” Flouncing over to Soul, she drops the letters into his hands, smug grin stretched across her lips. “Maybe if you’re extra nice when you deliver it, you’ll get a nice tip.”

“Yeah, of course,” he snarks, tucking the letters under his arm – and then instantly relocates them back to his hands, fearing they might wick up his sweat where he first placed them. “What are we going to the Gallows for, anyway? Seems pretty useless if you ask me.”

“Useless?” she gasps. “The annual Gallows Festival is coming up soon! Many great, powerful witches travel to the festival every year to share their practices. This is an excellent opportunity for you to learn as a witch’s apprentice. Sooo. Come on!”

And by come on, Maka means get out – because she promptly shoves Soul through the shop and out the front door, shutting him out with a silvery ring of the bell above the door. Soul ensures he removes his headband this time, sulking off down the road.

Of all of Maka’s witchy doo-dads – the awful spider furs, the many indistinguishable leafy green sprigs of whatevers, all of the flowers he still can’t remember the meanings of, the bat bones, and by Death don’t even get him started on all of the squiggly rune-y things she has hung up – Soul considers the carpetbag his favorite. It is a very ugly bag, which is a given considering it looks like it belongs on his grandmother’s floor. But it’s no ordinary carpetbag, Maka says. She calls it The Inventory – and, of course, insists that Soul does the same – and magically fits everything that they pack into it. Soul still pokes curiously at its insides, marveling at the fit of both his and Maka’s belongings despite the bag’s appearance. He dunks a hand into the endless black void of the bag as he steps aimlessly over a lichenous log.

“Stop,” Maka warns, without even looking at him. He yanks his hand out and shuts the bag, slinging it back over his shoulder.

“So is there some kind of tunnel to the Gallows, or? Where are we going?” Maka brings them out of Death Village, in dark and dripping forests far down south. The woolen green trees intertwine their tall arms above the travelling two, trapping in the humid warmth beneath their branching limbs. Moss clings to the soles of Soul’s shoes.

“I’m glad you asked.” Wringing her hands together, Maka stops in place, twirling around to face Soul, who almost collides with her from his lack of attention. “We’re going to fly to it by broom,” she says, raising up their broom from the corner of the shop.

So Soul “Eater” Evans resolves to journey to the Gallows Kingdom by broom.


	4. in which soul and maka must cross a channel by broom

In retrospect, crossing a channel of water on a witch’s broom should have seemed far more frightening to Soul, but by now he realizes that Maka carries within herself a confidence that conceals thoroughly the typical method with which she attacks her determinations: by immediately diving into a plan that she’s just thought up three minutes ago, usually. It’s not like he’s ever seen her fly on the broom, either; it’s just the conviction in her pearly grin as she lays out her idea that convinces him that she must be a master at it!

He regrets discovering that his first impression is incorrect. Completionist that she is, Soul can only imagine that Maka regrets his first impressions even more than he does, as she loves to be skillful and tidy in everything that she throws herself into.

Maka first brings them to a wooded cliffside, far enough from Death Village to make Soul’s feet ache terribly, so far away that getting off of his feet and onto a broom sounds especially appealing. Heaving out a sigh, Soul plops down onto the ground, twigs crunching beneath his backside, and stares up at Maka. She rolls her shoulders and pops her joints with much dramatic flourish, then licks the pad of her thumb and sticks it up into the wind. From her wide smile, she seems pleased with whatever information she might have gained from doing it, so Soul feels comfortable disrupting the chorus of rolling waves with his own breathless voice.

“So,” he rasps. “What’s the plan?”

Normally, he doesn’t bother questioning Maka, but the broom she holds looks – no, is particularly pathetic, as all of his attempts to sweep with it have always prompted more shedding of its straw than it has cleaning up any of the shop floor’s debris. By now, its head is so barren that it looks reminiscent of his balding grandfather, stems laying limp against the broom’s bar by the force of the twine keeping them bound.

As though reading Soul’s mind, Maka twists the broom upward, holding it above her head. Milky light swathes the broom, coiling around the handle like chunky ribbon and extending down its length. It comes to the head, shooting out of the straw in feathery pillars. The light soaks into the broom; the handle turns a smooth white, and the straw morphs into thick, amorphous white wings. Soul swears the wings flutter and wag doggishly as Maka’s excitement flares.

“Isn’t it neat?” Grinning, she thrusts the broom toward him, and he can’t resist taking it to comb his fingers through the wings – strangely thick, but still with a soft shapelessness. “We just have to . . . take a running start, and then jump off!”

And Soul does not question her plan, both because it sounds fine enough and because he is more consumed with poking at the wings than considering the analytics of the plan. When Maka pulls him begrudgingly back onto his feet, she takes the broom back and the gentle beat of the wings resumes. Soul gets over his displeasure from suddenly being denied the broom rather quickly, and that’s when the gravity of the situation dawns on him. 

He is about to cheat his way across the channel. His legs frame the broom handle, gaze shifting back at the way his ass struggles to figure out how it should settle onto the broom. He is about to fly on a broom. The breath leaves his lungs again, mingling with the harsh sting of cold wind tearing across his skin. Maka’s words are lost to the blood rushing in his ears, but she urges them both forward. He does not know how to move his gangly legs forward with a broom between them, but he goes from zero to one hundred real quick at the witch’s command, wobbling forward like a determined puppy. Mind and body rushing, he watches her and mimics. Seated mindfully behind Maka, he sprints forward towards the cliff’s edge, stumbling over stones and logs.

“There!” Maka’s hand leaves the back of her wind-blown hair to point ahead of them, and Soul cranes his head around her to look. The edge rapidly approaches and his fingers tighten around the broom, pulling upwards with urgence as though he might yank them up into the sky. He thinks about the wings flicking about through the air, pictures them cutting through the stony blue sky like glass – does flying on a broom feel more like gliding on the currents of the wind, or pumping birdishly through the air?

The answers arrives shortly.

When Soul moves to make another frenzied step, his foot lands on nothing, and suddenly Maka is crying out for them to jump!, and with what force he can still summon he pushes his other foot off of the grassy ledge and catapults into the air, and they plummet, tumble, plunge, dive, falling, falling, falling, falling, and there’s water – so much water, an endless damp blanket unfurling beneath his legs – and the waves seemed far gentler two thousand feet up than it does now, impending in his twisting eyes, where the sea seems to lurch and toss and chop into itself as though ill, and then they careen upwards.

By Maka’s hand the broom’s rod seems to twist and curve, and now she is the one yanking them back up. Behind Soul, quickening into a mad, heavy rhythm, the wings beat incessantly and carry them back up to safety. The water beneath him once again becomes smooth and untroubled, and he cannot avert away his stare as they raise farther and farther away – and with his first experience crashing dangerously down, he is unsure of whether he wants to be so high again as they soar now above the cliffs. The trembling ride on the broom feels reminiscent of walking in his parents’ shoes as a child – waddling around in his mother’s heels or clomping heavily around in his father’s loafers, staring over everyone with the newfound sense of authority that comes with his parents’ wardrobe. 

“See?” Maka chirps, glancing back at Soul with an easy smile. “We’re okay now.”

“Uh-huh.” Soul cannot help but pat his hands over his body as though he might’ve lost a chunk of himself in the fall. “Now we are. Is it always like that?”

“Well . . . not usually,” Maka says, and turns decidedly back to looking ahead. “But we’re in the air now, so we have to concentrate on that.”

“Usually? So it normally rides smoother than that?” He barks gruffly, latching a hand lightly onto one of Maka’s sleeves. “How often do you fly this thing?”

“I haven’t in . . . a while . . .”

“A while?! How long is a while?”

The broom wobbles beneath them, dipping down before jerking back up even higher. Soul considers puking, or maybe even screaming. Maka does not respond, so he swallows down what little saliva dwells in his dry throat and yells again, “How long? When was the last time you flew this thing, Maka?!”

Her responding quiet hangs tense and thick in the churning air around them, and Soul wishes he wasn’t so full of fright so he could take his clammy hands off of the broom and swat her palpable silence away. She seems to be concentrating on piloting, now; her own white-knuckled grip on the broom wavers and shifts constantly, and they’ve now taken to flying like an abandoned chick. Soul wiggles anxiously, and it only seems to pitch them further off of their calm course.

“Don’t yell at me!” Finally, Maka replies, but still she does not meet Soul’s eye. “It’s been a few years, alright?! It’s not like I need to fly around every day, you know!”

“And now felt like the right time to pull it back out? When we’re thousands of feet above the water?” Soul groans, slumping forward until his forehead touches her back. “You’re gonna freakin’ kill us.”

“Don’t say that! You’re going to make this even worse!” Lifting a hand cautiously from the broom, she twists her arm around to swat at him. “And stop slouching! We have to balance on this thing!”

Soul jolts upright suddenly, and the broom cants down towards him. Maka pushes down on the handle to stabilize them again, yelping out. “I didn’t mean like that!”

And Soul, so desperately longing to be back in his bed in his dowdy little room above the shop, or maybe even trekking along on one of his dreaded errands on The Solid And Reliable Earth, does not realize that he at last lifts his hands from the broom to clap them to his face with a long groan. The dark cavern of his hands is far more comforting; he isn’t thousands of feet high in the air anymore, nor is he constantly taunted with the threat of falling into the channel. He allows himself a serene sigh, finally at relative peace.  
Then, he realizes that he has removed his hands from – ironically – the safety of the broom.

Shrieking, Soul’s legs tighten around the broom. The broom sways. One of his awfully sweaty hands clamps down onto the handle. The broom flounders. He seizes Maka’s elbow as though he could automatically soak up some of her steadiness just by touching her. The broom nosedives as Maka flails in shock, wings drawing inanimate.

“Soul?!” Maka’s head whips around just as they both lose the broom beneath their legs. Soul feels no fright; his mind sprints and speeds to and from thoughts like a rally of badminton, and it draws his expression completely blank with shock. His ruddy hues drink up Maka’s form as she turns in the air to face him, studying the way her face bounces from emotion to emotion – crooked fright, strange and furrowed studiousness, and landing on clear-cut tenacity, the same sort of face he knows she makes when she shuts down her rude customers, when she finds another potion to brew, when she bids on tomes at the weekend flea markets with the intent to win. So, in what seems to be a dastardly pattern, Soul passes his fate into the quick, cunning hands of Maka and her whirlwind of ideas.

When she stretches her arms out with a determined knot in her brow, as though she might magically propel the mighty hands of the water out of hiding to catch their plummeting bodies in its gentle grasp, he reaches up, too, so he might hold onto the salvation of her clever hand. And Maka does not continue to reach out to the water; instead, she pushes her head downward to fall faster down and casts out an arm, hooking into Soul’s hold and pulling him up, snatching him up and to her as though he were a sack of potatoes. From her other hand, she points her palm to the nearing sea. Rivulets of light spring forth from her fingers, weaving quickly into each other to form a bowl beneath them.  
And they fall into the careful crater of Maka’s magic, the bobbing water of the blue channel continuing to slosh around just below them.

For a mere few seconds the only noises that come are their frenzied, stressed panting and the toiling waves bumping their temples against the bowl – which, soon as Soul regains a semblance of his bearings, he squawks and begins rolling about, nonplussed. He tosses about like a fish on land, eventually landing on his stomach. Struggling with his limbs, he presses his fists into what can only be the surface cradling him beneath his body. In wonder, he smooths his palms over the bottom of the bowl. Something holds him, but visibly there is nothing under him but a faint film of light, hardly noticeable. He continues to clap his hands against the bowl while, next to him, Maka is leaning so far out of it that she might tumble over the edge.

“If I concentrate hard enough, I think we can make it across like this,” Maka says resolutely, raising a hand to begin propelling them forward somehow.

“NO.” Soul shoots up from the bottom to wrestle Maka’s hand down. “NO. Somehow, that is even worse than your first idea. It’s – it’s like –” In his stress and uncomfortable sweaty dampness, Soul begins lecturing, of all things, with spirited flaps of his arms. “You’re in a competition with yourself to see how many times you can one-up yourself with really bad ideas. We cannot cross this whole channel in your little – your little thingy.”

As his lecture ends, he notices Maka watching him in silence, staring strangely at his moving arms. “Soul,” she says. “Turn around.”

Hands still raised, fumbling about gracelessly on his knees, Soul shuffles so his back faces Maka. She does not make any noise. He does not like it. Then, he catches the low sound of her skirts ruffling as she scoots over to him. Her small hand smacks into his back, near his shoulders.

“Where’s the bag.” She does not ask a question. It is a statement. Soul wishes it does not have to be either.

Immediately, they both squirm and slide around, Soul jumping until he’s face down again, legs flailing wildly in the space of the bowl. Maka shoves his feet out of her face and joins him, cheek pressed against the bowl’s floor as they peer into the water below.

“THERE! There!” Maka jabs her finger into the translucent floor, and together they spot the carpetbag sinking slowly, becoming a smaller and smaller dark dot in the ocean’s royal blue. “Huh. …OH NONONONO. GETITGETITGETIT –”

“SHIT,” Soul screeches, pounding his fists against the floor. “SHIT”– he sways to his feet, shoving his sleeves up his arms –“SHITSHITSHIT.” Sucking in a long breath, he launches over the edge and dives deep down.

Maka whisks her hands apart and the bowl follows, splitting in half and dissolving into nothing. Taking in a breath of her own, she sinks down to follow Soul, pushing urgently down into the thick, heavy sea. Soul claws his way deeper, shoving his arms through the water and kicking his legs until he fears cramps. The leather loops of the bag just barely catch under the very edges of his fingertips, and as soon as he coaxes it further up his fingers and gets a solid grasp on it he whirls around, pushing his head upwards, bleary eyes searching for the sharp salt for the pillar of light from the tiny sun far, far away. Darkness swamps his vision as his head turns, plains of ocean blackness and daylight taking their time to settle around him; and then, the plains break, pierced by a bursting, radiant halo.

Soul blinks, and blinks and blinks and blinks. For a moment he forgets to keep kicking his legs upwards. Maka shines like a bulb in the water, like a picture of glowing deliverance laying out its gentle arms to him. He reaches to her like he’s reaching to an angel – and she might as well be, the way light unfurls around her back like wings – and she takes his sorry life into her bright hands, hoisting him up into the warmth of survival.

As Soul heaves up water, Maka wades off to fetch her broom as it floats placidly nearby, the lull of the sea carrying it slowly away. When she returns, kicking her legs awkwardly with the broom obstructing her hands, she summons another basin beneath them with her light. With a surface beneath him, Soul eagerly drops their Inventory and hunches over, fists balled tightly against the floor, and tries to empty out his chest. For that brief moment, Maka stares at him with all of the softness and care to be felt by a person, watching him choke up water and take desperate gulps of bitter air. For just that minute, he is her world to guard; and then, promptly, she smacks him across the back as though she wants to watch him hack up one of his lungs. Soul almost believes that he will – she is too strong for her own good.

And by Death, her strength, her power bewilders him. He swivels to look at her, eyes stung red and blown wide, mouth agape with both a panting lack of breath and overwhelming incredulity. The intense attention makes Maka fiddle with her thumbs, shifting antsily on her knees.

“You,” he gasps. “You’re a fucking – angel or something, seriously.”

“I guess.” She shrugs, a shy red abloom beneath her cheeks. “Y’know how I told you there’s beginner witchcraft, that stuff that all witches have in common, and then there’s specialty magic? This is mine.” Flushed with pride, she motions to the bubble of light holding them. “Life. There’s the literal sense, like summoning a life preserver here, and there’s stuff like healing. Hm.” Maka takes to gnawing at her lip in thought. “I can sense souls, and that’s how I always know when you’re still laying in bed when I call you down to work in the morning, because I can see your soul dead-still where your bed is.”

Soul is not sure whether he should first try to absorb her exposure of him or how her magic works. Either way, a vein throbs in his forehead. Maka continues, counting off on her fingers.

“And I can see how you’re feeling based on your soul,” she spiels. “And I can kind of sense good and evil in a soul. What else? Um, well, it’s funny that you said I’m an angel, because my Mama – she could sense souls, too, in fact she always said that I’d probably have magic like her’s and she was right – she said that my soul has angel wings, and those kinds of souls have their own powers as well. I’m still trying to figure those powers out, honestly, but I think I have the same willpower as her that can help repel evil things when I sense it.”

By this point Soul yanks the Inventory into his lap, digging through its infinite contents for paper and a pen. “Hold – hold on, hold on.” He wrestles out some old book, thumbs through it hurriedly, and begins to tug at what seems to be a blank page. “Can you write all of that down?”

Maka shrieks in horror, carefully prying Soul’s fingers off of the innocent pages and stealing away the book. “Don’t do that! And why do you even need notes on it?!”

He blinks at her. “I dunno. It seems good to have.”

“No!”

“Well, can you at least magic us out of the water and to shore or something?”

“I need to keep my energy and swimming builds character.”

As soon as Maka utters the dreaded ‘s’ word, Soul lurches forward, taking her roughly by the shoulders, pupils reduced to red spots against panicked white eyes. “No,” he chokes. “You wouldn’t.”

Reaching around him, Maka picks up the Inventory and deposits the broom, then loops its straps carefully onto Soul’s shoulders. Smiling serenely, she unsummons the magic bowl beneath them. Soul takes in a breath, the start of an angry outburst before he must hurriedly shut his mouth to keep water out of his throat, and dunks underwater. His face scrunches at Maka as he watches her fall underneath after him, trying to glare her spry smirk back into neutrality. Even as she drops beneath the crisp water, she maintains a graceful air around her – the sparkling lengths of her skirt dovetail around her, and her pigtails float around like streaks of ashen angel wings from her head. Meanwhile, Soul feels like a rat getting waterboarded.

They resurface at the same time, and Soul shrugs his shoulders around to ensure he still has the carpetbag pulled on. Maka already paddles southward, her nonchalant hums lost between the swaying sea. “C’mon!” She shouts out to him. “Let’s get back to having the ground under our feet.”

Soul groans and starts after her, cutting through with all of his energy in each stroke in the water, catching up quickly to Maka’s breezy pace. He grunts as he slows at her side, watching as she’s taken to drifting placidly on her back.

She peeks an eye open at him. “Quit bellyaching,” she quips. With a flick of her hand towards him, bright magic springs from her fingertips and pushes into the water, splashing him with a crest of water.

“Really?” Eyes pinched, Soul swipes at his wet face. “You can use your magic to splash me, but not get us back quicker?”

“It’s just a little fun,” Maka coos. “Besides, I told you. I have to preserve my energy.”

“Sure seems like it the way you’re trying to drown me – again, might I add.”

This makes Maka right herself in the water. Soul believes that had it not have been for the thick water between them, she would be on him to wring his neck like a wet towel.

“Again?!” She barks, hands balled into fists. “Oh, please. This is a lot coming from someone who very willingly boarded my broom.”

Soul snorts and swims ahead. He very accidentally kicks his feet too hard right in front of Maka, drenching her. “Sorry I didn’t know you were so bad at flying your own broom.”

“Well, how should I have known you’d be so HEAVY?!”

“HEAVY?”

“And I’m sure you were sitting on it all wrong, too, throwing the balance right off!”

“Now WAIT just a MINUTE –”

And another crest of water collides with Soul’s face.

When a shore at last approaches, Soul claws his way up the white sand, dragging his legs uselessly behind him. Maka wobbles onto the beach herself, taking clunky and hesitant steps before smoothing her drenched skirts and plopping down miserably. Soul crawls his way over to her side before collapsing into complete stillness, too exhausted and cramped to scratch at the itchy sand that covers his left cheek as he slumps his face into the ground, one eye half-lidded and looking at Maka. She sighs, her thin fingers tangling through her bangs, nails coursing frighteningly fast through her scalp with her irritated musing.

Arm raising limply, Soul takes her wrist, pulling it to a halt away from her head. Their tired limbs remain there between them, Maka’s drooping hand and Soul rooting her down there with one weary hand of his own.

“You really didn’t think this through, huh?” His voice is small, gruff as the warm sand prickling against their skin.

“I thought it would work.” Her voice comes out equally as small and he is frightened to hear it. “We just have to concentrate on balancing the broom together. I swear, we could do it . . .”

“Hey,” he says with a stern tug at her wrist. “Of course we can do it. Just not right now. We can just work on figuring that out when we’re not flying over a body of water, yeah? Sound cool?”

Soul drops her wrist to raise his fist to her.

“. . . Sounds cool.” She smiles, contagious as the kudzu that smothers the ground and the trees of his backyard at home. Her fist bumps against his.


	5. in which blood is spilled and promptly wicked back up

By no means is a beach a proper place to nap, but neither Maka nor Soul can keep themselves from trying to argue logic. Shortly after discussing how they should proceed with their journey, Soul digs his head into a grainy pillow of sand and passes out. When she notices he’s unconscious, Maka rolls her eyes and takes the Inventory carefully off of Soul’s back, leans it against his midriff, crumples down against the bag, and stares out into the water until she slips asleep, too. 

But she is the first to wake up, and apparently quite intent on making sure Soul follows quickly after her, because he stirs to Maka vigorously sweeping sand into his face with their awful broom.

“Oh! It worked.” Maka beams down at him. “C’mon! We can’t stay here forever.”

Soul’s eyes sluggishly peel open, and he tries his best to blink away the copious lingering exhaustion away – only to blink sand right into his eyes. He opens his mouth to yell. Sand enters his mouth.

“Dammit!” He jolts upright, shuffling his hands through his hair and frantically brushing over his face, blowing sandy raspberries with his tongue. “What are you doing that for?!”

“I had to wake you up,” she says it as though it’s the most obvious answer in the world, even though Soul can currently think of at least four other answers that are far more obvious than trying to bury him alive in the sand. “You’re a really heavy sleeper. Just shaking you and yelling wasn’t doing anything, so I had to get creative.”

Grumbling, he stumbles up to his feet and plods off to the water to rinse his face. That turns into dunking his head underwater to get sand out of his hair, and he can feel water dripping down the deep frown lines of his face as he resurfaces. Shaking his head dry like a dog, he turns back to Maka. Behind her, the sun laughs between trees.  
“It’s going to get dark in a few hours,” she calls out to him. “We should find a village or something.”

He shields his eyes and stomps forward.

Soul gets to see more of that magic Maka named off in person. They stand at the heart of the wood after minutes of wandering north from the shore, and Maka draws completely still. She shuts her eyes, and when Soul turns back to check on her in confusion he finds her looking strangely at rest – yet still standing. Then, her eyes flutter open, and behind her lids her vibrant forest eyes turn glassy and shapeless, like green marbles in her sockets.

“I’m just sensing souls,” she says, like she is doing something normal and habitual. “Don’t worry if it looks weird.”  
And then she blinks and her eyes are real again. While Soul stares, head cocked and brows arched into his hairline, she strolls past him, clapping him lightly on his shoulder. “I think there’s a town this way. Let’s go.”

They continue walking in the song of cicadas and the forest’s steady breathing, silence between them save for the one note Maka offers Soul when he asks about it: “Your soul is light blue, you know.” No, he does not know; but now he finds the information rolling about endlessly in the well of his mind, all too unsure of what to make of his soul’s relevance.

Thankfully, he does not have to mull over the matter of the soul much longer, for the forest thins and they step out into a dirt road on the outskirts of a village. The sun slinks ever lower down the sky, which has become a pleasant tangerine hue. It shines from behind tall stone gables and, at the center of the nearing village, a church’s tower. The village is a simple patch in the glades, circular in shape with all of its houses built on the outskirts. As Soul and Maka enter, they find the services in the middle of the circle, seeming to be built around the huge church.

They spot the swinging sign of an inn and head inside, booking themselves a room with a handful of coins and the jitteriness of toddlers in their musty, dirtied clothes in the middle of the pristine cabin. The lady at the desk pays them no mind, thankfully; she simply gathers her skirts up and leads them to their room with a wide, wrinkled smile. As soon as she departs from their doorway Soul stumbles inside and flops onto his bed, rolling up into the crisp white bedding. Maka scoffs and tugs at his duvet, which he snippily yanks and holds over his face.

“Get up,” she whines. “You’re gonna get your bed all gross.”

“I’m tired,” he groans.

“So am I!” Maka waits a moment, his bedding still pulled taut between them, before letting go with a grumble. “Fine, stinky. I’m going to wash up first.”  
Soul does not see Maka sticking her tongue out at his blobby, shapeless blanket-form as he remains bundled up in his bed. He waits for the sound of the faucet running to poke his head out of his cocoon, staring blankly up at the paneled ceiling. It feels strangely uncomfortable to hear water now; instead, he tunes his ears to the distant rumble of lively conversation downstairs, punctuated occasionally by the loud clap of folksy singsong. Amply spaced out, his thoughts return to his soul. He tries to picture it – a little blue thing, a glowing ball between his ribs that wavers and flares with his mood. Does it have a face? He places his own face on the blue ball, and it becomes frighteningly realistic for an amorphous orb. He tries not to think anymore.

The bathroom door squeals open, and Maka emerges freshly dressed and combing through her hair. Seeing Soul finally emerged, she smiles and tosses a towel at his face from the linen closet.

“Good,” she says, strolling past him and dropping neatly onto her bed. “You’re finally up! It’s your turn now.”

Soul tosses around like a heavy log in his bed before swatting the towel off of his face. He balls it up into his fist, thinking.

“Hey,” he mutters. “I have a question.”

“What’s up?” She arches a brow, still combing, and he squirms around to turn his head toward her.

“How else does that whole ‘seeing souls’ business work?” He asks, temple knotted with deep contemplation. “What else does my soul look like?”

Maka cocks her head to the side, chewing on her lip as she figures out what to say. “I already told you,” she settles on eventually, fiddling with the hem of her skirt. “I can see souls, and I can judge whether someone’s soul is good or bad. From far away, everyone’s soul looks the same – pale, round, small. But when you look up close, you see more details: the color of the soul, the different size, the shape. An evil soul is very dark and purple, like it’s bruised by its very evilness. And a good soul . . . it shines. It’s kind of lustrous.” She nods at him. “That’s your soul. And mine. Your’s is light blue and a little big, and very shiny. And . . . kind of weird. It’s very spiky.”

Rising to her feet, she pads across the wood floors, peeking through the curtains and out of their room’s window. “I’ve been trying to sense magic in people’s souls, too. I have to concentrate really hard, so it’s been a lot of work. But I think I’ve found some! It could be another witch!” Maka spins on her feet, looking back at Soul with shining eyes and hands clasped excitedly together. “So hurry up and bathe! We have to look around the village together.”

Bouncing over to him, the little witch wrenches Soul’s covers out from under him. He squawks and rolls to the floor.

“Alright, alright! I’m going,” he grumbles, rubbing at his backside. Reluctantly, he enters the bathroom with a weighty paranoia towards the shallow tub of water inside.

Soul busies himself with studying their map from the innkeep, following after the vague shape of Maka in his peripheral and bumping into far fewer people than he anticipated. Maka, meanwhile, scans the entire length of the village. The moon is up and huge in the blotted violet sky now, and the villagers have lit the lampposts standing all around the village. The wavering light doesn’t deter her movement, though; she simply takes the trails of souls in her fish-eyed vision and the occasional nudge in the right direction from Soul, glancing up from the map to make sure Maka doesn’t walk herself into a pit or down a well or something. He just barely stops her from barreling headfirst into the church’s doors, and when she faces him she’s blinking her eyes back to life with excitement glittering on her face.

“This is it,” Maka declares, and Soul feels inclined to disagree very, very much.

He lets go of her shoulder to instead gaze up at the church. “Are you sure this is where it was? Doesn’t seem like much of a place to have magic, I’m not gonna lie. Given that it’s, you know. A church.”

That only seems to excite her more, and it concerns him. She rocks up onto her tiptoes, nodding in his face with the expression of a puppy that’s just been offered a treat. “Yes! I’m sure there’s someone magic here, Soul. I can feel it! I think.”

The last part comes out very rushed and quiet, but Soul has a musician’s ears. Maka, however, has an overactive child’s agility, and she bursts into the church before he can protest. Candles cast the clean ecru of the space in a warm gold that slithers along all of the walls, drawing Soul’s eyes up to the languid shapes of people captured in vibrant stained glass that stretches high up the walls. He hums in thought, studying each pane.

“Huh. Pretty nice in here, at least,” he murmurs, circling around slowly. “But I’m still not seein’ any magic.”

The candlelight wavers, writhing on the walls. Maka huffs and stomps at Soul. “Come on, Soul! I know magic. I’m the witch here, you know!”

Soul shrugs, hands dropping nonchalantly into his pockets. “I dunno. I’m just saying; it doesn’t seem like there’s anything in here, so maybe we should just –”

All of the candle’s flickering wicks die abruptly, leaving only the moonlight dipping through the stained glass to light the church. Soul yelps, jumping over to Maka as they both notice a lanky figure standing from one of the pews. “Holy shit,” he croaks. “Where the fuck did they come from.”

Maka takes in a slow, cautious breath, staring blankly at the rising black form. “That’s . . . it,” she says. “That’s – that’s the magic, Soul. We found it.”

Then the black form defines itself: in the moon’s light it becomes a body, pale as moon’s hue itself, draped in shadowy black dress with shadowy black eyes, the same glass in their pupils as Maka when she senses souls. Choppy lavender-pink hair crowns their head, ending shortly just where their guarded frown begins across their face.

“You’re a witch?” Their frightened voice creaks from their tense mouth. They tilt their head to the side, and it falls into place as though loose on the joint of their neck.

Soul reaches to pull Maka back – he doesn’t know where, doesn’t know what for, only that he feels overwhelmingly sure that they should get away. But Maka takes a little step forward, nodding warily.

That is apparently not the right answer, and the situation advances, hellbound, before Soul can think of what to do. From the shadows of their dark robes the spindly figure brandishes an obsidian-dark sword, and immediately Soul takes Maka’s shoulder into his hand. She does not turn around.

“You have to leave, now,” they warn shakily. “Witches aren’t – witches aren’t nice. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle a witch. Please leave.”

Maka takes another little step forward, hands raised in surrender. “I’m not going to do anything to you.”

They whip the sword around like it’s nothing, fluid movements a harsh contrast with their rigid posture. “You can’t hurt this church with your magic, witch. I can’t let you hurt the church, or Miss Marie, or Dr. Stein. Please leave, please leave. I won’t be able to handle a witch like you if you don’t.”

“Please,” Maka pleads. “I promise I’m not going to use my magic to hurt anyone here. Please. What’s your name?” Her voice crawls its way out of her throat, trembling from her lips and struggling to stand as lighthearted the way she wants it to. Soul tries to shake at Maka’s shoulder again.

“I can’t tell you that,” they say, strangled. Their head shakes slowly, a motion like a doll’s head being turned firmly from left to right. Goosebumps raise all over Soul’s arms. “You’re a mean witch. And you didn’t listen to me!” They snap into a stance for battle, sword angled across their chest. Maka staggers backwards. “Now I have to kill you. I told you to leave! I told you I wouldn’t be able to handle you!”

Their torso does not move, but their legs launch them immediately forward, the point of their sword now pointed to Maka. She screeches and thrusts her hands forward, spears of light shooting out of her fingertips and piercing the swordfighter’s robes. Their skin singes a battered violet, vulnerable now through the torn holes of their clothes. They screech backwards, hands darting to the new wounds, fingers prodding into their opening skin. Soul takes the opportunity to jerk Maka around. She stares up at him, and for a rare moment he sees her without a plan scribbled across her face.

“Maka. We need to go, right now,” Soul barks. She does not respond, just blinks up at him. He takes her wrist to lead them out of the church.

Behind, the black figure continues to rub at their injuries, head completely bowed down to look at their body. “You said,” they mutter. “You said you weren’t going to use your magic to hurt me, right? You really are a mean witch.”

Soul perks his head up, looking to them. They raise their sword high, blood unfurling from their body like new, needly black limbs – and the dark needles stretch through the air to lunge at Maka’s back, followed by an incoming obsidian sword. Mouth dropping open, he uses his hold on her to drag her behind his back. The black blood needles converge into one single limb, slicing across his chest. Blood splatters across the ground.

“Soul!” Maka stirs back to life, green eyes darting in horror between the spilled blood and the long, gaping wound that opens in his chest. She lurches forward, thrusting out her hands, summoning all of the magic she can muster into the pads of her fingers.

But the blood on the floor vibrates, growing dark. And Soul’s mind races, jumping from he is hurting to he is bleeding to his soul to his blood. He thinks of his blood when he nicked his finger, and the way it encased his finger as though possessing a mind of its own. He thinks of how this person’s blood spills into sharp, pointed weapons.

It is once more Manifestation Time.

Blood pours black from his chest, surging forward into shapeless solid from his skin. Blood ascends from the ground, joining the mass protruding from Soul’s wounds. The figure startles. 

“Huh?” they choke. Still, they continue rushing forward. “Why are you like me?”

They swing their sword downwards, and the tendril of blood changes shape, forming a curved blade for the weapon to clash against. Maka gasps. “Soul! What – what are you doing?!”

“I don’t know,” he says through gritted teeth.

Soul spreads his hands apart, and the blade of blood from his chest shifts into a shield in front of him, trapping the obsidian sword within it. Maka whips around; the doors burst open, and a blonde woman sprints into the church. “Crona!”

With the appearance of the blonde the dark figure releases their sword right away, blood extending from their body losing suspension and dropping to the floor. Soul’s blood follows shortly afterwards, and he sags back into Maka’s arms.

“Miss Marie,” Crona sobs. “I couldn’t handle the witch. I’m sorry.”

A grey-haired man – Dr. Stein, then? – charges into the church next, yellow eyes immediately falling to the mat of blood beneath his feet. Marie takes Crona into her arms, and Maka watches light pour from her eye, barely contained by the black eyepatch that covers her left eye. The gashes open along Crona’s body glow with Marie’s light. Maka takes Soul closer to her, sniffly and tears dangerously close to spilling over onto his face.

“Franken,” Marie says, an alert. She looks wordlessly to Soul and Maka, and Stein’s gaze follows. Stein rotates the strange, bulky screw in his head and helps Maka up, lifting Soul easily into his arms. Black blood seeps into his patchy white coat, and as he turns around, Maka reaches for the ends of the labcoat, fingers falling just short of the starchy fabric. She feels like an infant begging her mother to stay close.

Marie comes to her side, settling a soothing hand onto Maka’s back. “Hey,” she coos. “Everything will be fine. Come with us.”

Stein nudges the doors open and he leads them behind the church, prying eyes jumping away at the sight of his silvery frame trekking through the village. Marie walks close behind him, leading Crona by hand. Maka trails behind them, eyeing the entire bunch dubiously – but her judgment lapsed, and they hold Soul.

They come to a lodge near the church, and the four of them push inside. Maka stops at the entrance, hands twisting in contemplation, before she ducks inside with them. Crona sits down at a low table in the living room, and Maka can hear water splashing into a kettle. Stein and Soul are nowhere to be found. Exhaling, she lowers down across from Crona, who struggles to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” Crona blurts.

Maka nods silently, looking down at her fingers.

“Please say something,” they say. “The silence is awful.”

Breathing feels laborious, exhales coming thick from her nostrils. Maka gazes up at Crona again, very aware of her tongue in her mouth. She finds words. “Why did you think I was going to hurt anything?”

Crona shifts on their knees. The way they stare ahead, Maka feels as though they’re staring into her. “I don’t like witches. Witches have always been very mean. I only know one nice witch, and that’s Miss Marie. I didn’t think there are many people like her.” They wobble slightly. “And I can’t handle strangers, either. I don’t know what strangers will do. Miss Marie is so nice to me; I have to help take care of the church with her. I’m sorry.”

“How many witches do you know?”

“I know Miss Marie, and I know you now, too. My mother was a witch.”

Maka’s brows knit together. “Your mother isn’t Marie?”

“No.” Crona shakes their head. “My mother’s name was Medusa Gorgon. She was mean, but I was probably doing something wrong . . . AH! Why are your eyes like that?!”

Deep within the well of Crona’s chest, Maka sees their soul: huge and dark, pointed as their choppy hair, coated with a brilliant luster. Maka blinks the glass out of her eyes as Marie comes bearing kettle full of tea and mugs. She sits down between the two of them, pouring tea out into the mugs.

“I’m sorry,” Marie says, sliding a mug to Maka. “We didn’t introduce ourselves in the rush, did we? My name is Marie, and this is Crona – and that man was Dr. Stein. He’s in the back with your friend.”

At the mere mention of Soul, Maka jumps up, making the dishes rattle on the table. “Is Soul alright?!”

Marie nods, taking a long sip of her tea. “Give Dr. Stein some time to stitch him up, but he’ll be fine. He’s lucky that your magic is so strong.”

Maka shakes her head, head falling down. She scrubs against her eyes with her fists, willing them to remain dry. “No, he’s not,” she whimpers. “It’s my fault it happened in the first place. I dragged him into the church messing around with my soul sensing. He wouldn’t have gotten hurt if it wasn’t for me.”

Reaching across the table, Marie gently tugs Maka back into sitting, stroking her thumb across the girl’s hand. “Hey now,” she says. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s easy to think about what we wish we did, but in the end, that’ll do nothing but continue to hurt us, won’t it?”

Sniffling, Maka feels her cheeks wet, but she looks up, unwavering, and nods. “Yeah . . . I guess you’re right about that.”

Across from Maka, Crona tries to bring their mug to their lips, but their shaking hands send tea jostling over the edge and onto the table. Crona sniffles themselves, blinking tears down into their cup of tea. “I’m sorry, Maka,” they cry. “I didn’t mean to hurt either of you like that. I’m just – messed up to everyone. I’m sorry. I’m no good.”

“Hey!” The two sniveling kids join hands, Maka’s hands gentle and comforting. She smiles despite the wetness and blotchiness of her face, thinking of that dark luster. “Don’t say that. You aren’t no good. I can see it in your soul. You’re very good, Crona.”

“Do you really mean that . . . ?”

Maka nods vigorously, now outright beaming. “Of course!”

Crona cries. Marie drinks her chamomile.

“So,” Stein says hours later, when Soul miraculously wakes. Maka sits by his bedside. “How long have you been able to control your blood?”

Soul blinks. And blinks. “What.” He can control blood? Shuffling upright, he looks down at his body, eyeing the long stitch across his chest. Oh, right, he can control blood now. He scratches through his hair, missing his headband. “I don’t really know.” Sitting in silence for a minute, he gnaws at his lower lip before shifting his red eyes to Maka. Clearing his throat, he glances away, poking his thumb out at her. “I think she cursed me.”

“EXCUSE ME?” Maka shrieks, leaping up from her chair, just barely keeping herself from throttling Soul in consideration of his injuries. “I WHAT?”

“You cursed me!” he snaps, folding his arms. “Why else would I do all of that lame stuff for you? Errands suck!”

“So you arrived immediately at the conclusion that I must have CURSED YOU?”

“Besides, I found your big spellbook. ‘Eibon’s Study of Magick, Property of the Royal Gallows Library.’ That looks like it has curses in it.”

“I – you found what? Where is it?”

“I brought it. It’s in our Inventory.”

“Ugh. That . . . isn’t a big book of curses, Soul. I forgot I even had it. Besides, wouldn’t it make sense for a WITCH to have a SPELLBOOK?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Soul sinks back down in the bed, pulling the covers over his head. He grimaces as Stein starts turning his screw again, meaty clicks sounding from his head. “Could you stop that?”

Stein drops into a chair, wheeling to a desk in the room to wipe up his tools. “You’re not cursed. Your soul would look far different if you were. In fact”– he swivels around so he’s looking at Maka –“I’d say this little lady’s soul would prevent you from ever getting cursed as long as you’re around her. Angel things. A special soul.” He turns away again. “She’s the reason why you’re in good condition.”

“Yeah, Soul!” Maka huffs. “I told you all of that stuff, too! Didn’t you hear me?”

“I’m sorry, Maka, but I was focusing a little more on not drowning this morning.” Soul would like the power to melt into the mattress, but instead he has his stupid blood control.

“Although,” Stein pipes up, turning with a light in his glasses blocking his eyes. “Your soul is quite clouded when I look at it. Seems like your senses are being messed up by something – maybe someone.”

Pale as the sheets on the bed, Maka falls quiet. Soul groans, not wanting to hear them talk about him right in front of him, and buries himself back under the blankets, covering his ears with his pillow until their voices are muffled.

“Do you remember me, Maka?” Stein’s eyes glint knowingly.

Swallowing thickly, the witch begins fiddling with her thumbs. “I don’t think I can forget a man with a giant screw in his head.”

“How many years has it been since I’ve seen you last?”

“You aren’t going to say anything to anyone, are you?”

Stein laughs too loudly for her comfort, but shakes his head. “No. I’ve got nothing to do with anyone over there anymore. You’d best be more cautious, though. I’d try to solve that problem of your’s I mentioned, if I were you.”

Marie appears in the doorway, smile crooked with concern. “Is everything alright in here? Oh!” She strolls to the bed, lifting the blankets from Soul’s face. Intelligible voices, regrettably, return to him. “You woke up.”

Soul groans. “I feel like I’ve heard that a lot lately.”

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Marie hums. “It doesn’t seem like you guys are from here. Are you travelling?”

“Yes,” Maka says, sitting back down calmly. “We’re travelling to the Gallows Kingdom for their festival tomorrow. I, um, tried to fly us there by broom. Over a channel.”

This time, Marie blinks at her, eyebrows shooting up. “. . .Huh. Well, why don’t you kids just try the ferry tomorrow? I’ll help you get a pair of tickets to board. It’ll probably be . . . safer. And faster. And more reliable.”

Excitement glows in Maka’s face, but before she can nod Soul pops out from under the covers. “Yes,” he says snappily. Maka narrows her eyes at him. “We’ll take it.”


	6. in which there is a festival

The sunhat Maka shoves into Soul’s hands is far too big for his head, but she glares at him if he so much as reaches up near his head, so it remains on his head throughout the ferry ride. They are both dressed unlike themselves; Soul wears a dark suit jacket that also happens to be too big for him, fancy loafers with a short little heel on his feet. Maka’s hair is pulled into a neat ponytail, pointed sunglasses obscuring most of her face save for her painted red lips. Her flouncy white dress reminds him of his mother.

“We look stupid,” Soul says.

“Shut up,” Maka snaps.

The ferry is indeed faster, already halfway across the channel in the time it took them to launch on Maka’s broom. Part of Soul is grateful for his ridiculous sunhat because it keeps him from looking at the water and remembering the previous day.

“Why are we even wearing this stuff?” he complains. “All of your little witch friends are going to laugh us right back across the damn channel when we show up looking like this.”

“It’s important, okay!” Maka crosses her legs pointedly, frowning at Soul from under her chunky sunglasses.

“Yeah, sure.” He rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s even going to recognize you looking like that. There’s no point.”

That keeps Maka quiet, and he does admittedly feel quite satisfied by it, thank you very much. Eventually all she can muster is a quiet “whatever,” completely turning away from him to stare over the edge of the ferry. Soon the ferry pulls to a halt at a port, and even with the Gallows a ways away Soul can still hear its boisterous celebration. Maka hoists up the Inventory and hops off of the boat while Soul climbs out, marveling at how colorful confetti floats all the way to the docks from the kingdom, fluttering down to the ground at his feet. Maka hooks her elbow through his and begins weaving them expertly through the crowds of the port.

“Geez,” he mutters. “Do you do this often or what?”

A huff from Maka. She still stares ahead as she replies, bobbing and weaving through packs of people. “I’ve just . . . been to the festival a lot.”

They emerge safely from the dense throngs of people, coming out at a sett road. Carriages shoot down the street; Maka waves her hand up and manages to flag one down. Urging Soul along, she steps into the carriage.

“To the Gallows Festival, ma’am?” the coachman asks, glancing back at the two as his horses start off, hand held back to them.

“Yes sir,” Maka says, dropping a handful of coins into his palm before leaning back into her seat, fixing her glasses on her face.

“It’s pretty fast around here, huh?” Soul grasps the edge of the coach to peer around at his surroundings. “You’re an ace at working with this stuff.”

Maka nods absently, nibbling at her thumbnail. “Mm. I guess.”

“Gross. Quit biting your nails,” he says, swiping her hand away from her mouth. She sticks her tongue out at him before stopping. “So, what do we have to do before we get there, anyway?”

“Well, normally we’d, um . . . set up a booth . . . but – but the king and his council will be in attendance at his castle this year, overseeing everything, so we might be able to meet him. So, um. I think we should do that first.” she rambles, all fidgety thumbs and bouncing legs.

He cocks a brow at her. “Death, are you nervous or something?” Soul chuckles. “I mean, I guess I get it since he’s a king and all, but I didn’t imagine you’d be that nervous over something like that.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe I’ll leave it all to you, then, tough guy.”

A bell tolls; their carriage stops at the tall arch welcoming everyone into the Gallows Kingdom. Ribbons of black, white, red, and gold hue are slung in the doorways and windows of every building that Soul can see – and boy, are there many – and are braided up the length of the stair handles that lead into each different tier of the kingdom. The Gallows does indeed seem to be built in layers, with the highest and most central holding the huge, round castle in all of its oddly symmetrical glory. Decorations grow more excessive and gaudy the closer they are situated to the castle, with some buildings even sporting big skull-shaped balloons and lanterns.

Soul spits out a fleck of confetti that falls into his mouth.

“This place is fucking huge,” he gapes. More confetti flutters onto his tongue. “We have to climb all of those stairs?”

“It’s really not that bad,” Maka laughs and heaves their carpetbag up and out of the carriage, pulling them both out. She pulls the bag onto her shoulders before taking his elbow again, leading them through even huger crowds. There are stalls bustling along the main street, offering games, knick-knacks, and foods. People drink merrily in the street, dancing together in circles. Maka curves them carefully around the latter group.

“Death,” Soul grouses, watching one group cheer and wrestle with each other as a purple cat pads up towards them. He winces and looks away. “This feels dangerous.”

“Don’t be silly,” Maka says, leading them up their first set of stairs. “This festival is a long-held tradition. People always get this excited, but nothing bad ever happens, you big worrywart.”

The crowds thin the further up they get, though there is still a considerable line leading out of the castle gates. Maka stops to nudge Soul’s stomach.

“Do me a favor,” she whispers. “Get that spellbook you told me about from out of the Inventory.”

He sighs and obeys, fishing out the heavy tome for her. She adjusts her sunglasses again, purses her lips, and approaches one of the guards flanking the gates. The guard lowers his scythe in front of her, forbidding their entry.

“Hold,” the guard says. “What are you doing? There’s a line. You’ll have to wait your turn, Miss.”

“I’m, um,” Maka clears her throat and flashes the spellbook. The sun catches on its gilded cover. Her voice sounds too deep to be coming from her body, the way she speaks. “We’re with the Royal Gallows Library. Heading back to work – had to investigate one of our recent acquisitions.”

The excuse sounds very blatantly like a stupid excuse to Soul. The guard seems to disagree, because he raises his scythe.

“Very well.” The man nods. “Head inside the castle, then. Mind the crowds. Take a break and enjoy the festivities, if you can.”

“Of course!” Maka flashes her clever, toothy grin at the guard and leads Soul into the castle. “Fuckin’ gottem, Soul.”

“. . . Don’t do that,” Soul groans.

They follow the flow of the crowd into the main courtyard, where huge, bell-shaped dresses in rich purples and greens swirl about in dance. There are sharp suits and rich-looking headpieces. Meanwhile, Soul and Maka are dressed in clothes from a secondhand shop that are two sizes too big for them.

“So, um,” Soul mumbles in Maka’s ear. “Do you know who’s who here? There’s a lot of fancy-looking people.”

She nods, pointing first to a black-haired boy; three white stripes line the side of his head, and gold rings circle his pupils. He wears a black suit and a stuffy-looking cravat, and the two girls at his side wear outfits nearly identical to his. The boy stares blankly ahead. The taller girl tugs awkwardly at the red collar of her top.  
“That’s the king’s son, Kid,” Maka says.

“Very creative name,” Soul quips.

“Whatever, whatever. The girls with him are his attendants, the Thompson sisters. Liz is the tall one, and Patty’s the short one. We can get past them really easily if Kid is distracted by something out of place.”

Get past them? Huh? Soul blinks.

“And that’s Blackstar and Tsubaki in the middle of the courtyard.”

Blackstar is shouting in the middle of the floor, wearing a suit that seems almost as ill-fitting on him as Soul’s. Despite his name, his hair is blue. Soul does not understand it. Tsubaki stands next to him, looking as though she’s trying to coax Blackstar into calming down. She’s far more put together: sleek black hair neatly pinned up and dressed in a nice mint-green gown. Pearls hang from her neck and ears. Soul does not understand the contrast between them, but he supposes he is no better given his current circumstances.

“There’s no way we have to worry about them. Blackstar’s gonna want to win the crowd over. As long at least one person is paying attention to what he’s saying, he won’t notice us not noticing him, and Tsubaki’s gonna be busy trying to tame him.”

Next, she points to the man on the throne; at least Soul guesses he is a man. His form is obscured by a black cloak, and a skull mask covers his face.

“That’s King Death. And next to him –”

Maka’s finger falls, hands tightening into white fists at her sides. Soul follows her lead, and his gaze settles on the red-haired man at the king’s side.

“. . . And next to him?” Soul repeats, looking at Maka now. He recognizes her determination from the firm set of her jaw, from her downturned brow. Maka snatches Soul’s wrist and drags him through the swarms of people.

“Come with me,” she says.

“No! Come on, Maka,” he does his best to whisper-yell. “I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe we can have a semblance of a plan this time. Together, maybe.”

“We do have a plan! If you’d just come on!”

“Last time we had a plan, we ended up hurt or nearly hurt, Maka. Can we seriously just talk about this really fast? I don’t get why you’re freaking out, rushing around! How do you know all of these people? What are you talking about, ‘getting past them’?” Soul clamps his hands down on Maka’s shoulders, shaking her lightly. “Can we just get it together?!”

Hesitating, Maka flicks her gaze between Soul and the red-haired man. She swallows, settling on Soul – glimpsing down to his chest, where his stitches rest beneath his baggy grey suit, and then coming back up to his face.

“I’m.” She shuts her mouth, swallowing again, blinking. Soul watches her fingers shake. “I – I know. I’m sorry. The plans haven’t been that good so far. This one”– her green eyes snap away from Soul again, he notices, back to the red-haired man –“it’s just. You know, like – like I told you, this festival is an . . . opportunity of a lifetime. And – and this is a great opportunity to try and – and show the royal court our magic. The royal advisor. That’s the man next to the king. And you can – you can play the piano for him.”

Soul studies her face before exhaling with a nod. “I guess that makes sense. But why would I even play the piano for them? Do they even have one?”

Maka shrugs. “What castle doesn’t have a piano? We can just ask.”

“Well,” Soul sighs. “Sounds fine to me.” He offers her his elbow. Seconds pass; she takes it.

Tentatively, Maka ascends the step towards the throne after Soul. Soul smiles down at her. “It’s fine. I know your magic is great, Maka. You’ll do great. Knock ‘em dead.”

She nods absently.

They continue up the short steps to the throne and stop a length away from the thrones. Clearing her throat, Maka summons the red-haired man’s attention.

“Excuse me? Lord Spirit?”

The red-haired man looks away from the courtyard to Soul and Maka. Soul bows immediately, a bit clumsily. Maybe he should have practiced. Maka holds one hand against her sunglasses and lowers into her best curtsy.

“Good afternoon, Milord,” Maka speaks with her voice too deep again. “I am the humble Witch of Death Village, and this is my apprentice, Soul. We were hoping Milord might grace us with his attention; we’ve dreamt of demonstrating our magic for him. And, um – my companion can play the piano very well.”

She elbows Soul. He staggers before nodding in agreement.

The red-haired man is silent. Wringing her hands together, Maka bows as low as she can. “Please, Milord.”

He whispers to the king, who does not appear to move, but the red-haired man nods along to something that he says, voice lost in the commotion.

At last, Spirit steps away from his post at the king’s side, smiling gingerly. “Very well,” he says. “We’ll go to the parlor, and you can do your song and dance there. Much-needed break from the noise, I suppose.” He leads them into the halls behind the thrones. “Not like I’m doing much interesting, anyway, huh? Just standing next to the king.”

The walk is silent, and somehow Soul does not like it. Maka has not stopped fidgeting with her hands. Soul slows his pace, building some distance between them and Lord Spirit. “Hey,” he whispers, laying a hand on Maka’s shoulder. “It’s fine.”

“No, Soul.” Maka shakes her head. “You – you were right. I didn’t think this through. I can’t do it. But when I look at him –”

“Forget about all of that,” Soul exclaims. “Ignore what I said before. You can do this.”

“No, Soul, I –”

A dry chuckle echoes off of the cream walls. “Better not be talking about me back there,” Spirit jokes.

Soul gives Maka one last encouraging clap against her back before speeding back up, falling in stride once more with Spirit. Maka still lags behind, dragging her feet, and Soul would normally check back on her again had it not have been for the sheer beauty of the parlor as they enter – or, more particularly, its grand piano. The huge, pretty thing sits in the corner of the room, sleek and black. Soul races immediately to the bench, plopping down like his ass belongs on it.

“Wow,” he marvels. “Oh. This is real nice.”

Spirit smirks and moseys to the piano, leaning against it. Soul does not like it, but he chooses to continue admiring the piano instead of voicing his concerns. “It sure is. So you’re a pianist, eh?”

“Yeah,” Soul agrees, pressing one of the keys experimentally. Gold to his ears.

“Well, have a field day with that old thing,” Spirit says, then crosses the room to Maka, who hangs her head in the entrance. “What about you, little lady? Don’t you have some magic to show me while your friend here plays some music?”

“Yes,” she says.

Grinning, Spirit strolls to one of the armchairs and drops down into it, head balanced against his palm. “Well, go ahead. Impress me.”

Sighing, Maka takes the Inventory off and digs through it, retrieving a small case of cards. She sets the case down on a table before, nodding to Soul to begin playing, launching into more minor, theatric displays of her magic. Fluttering her fingers, a burst of light pops up from her palms and fizzles away in the air. Strings of twinkling white magic circle the room, floating to the table to lift up a few cards from the case. The cards twirl through the air, showing the shining figures of bronzy, muscled angels arching as though in pain, wings flexed out from their backs.

Maka swallows, looking to Soul again. He nods hopefully at her. “I can’t do it,” she mumbles.

Soul’s fingers roll over the keys, piano song intoning encouragingly. As Maka continues to stand, staring at Soul, he tries to rally more for her. “You’re doing fine, Maka,” he cheers.

“Maka?” Spirit bolts upright and stiff in his chair; Maka’s gaze snaps to him. She shakes her head forcefully, and her sunglasses fly off of her face. Deep green eyes stare the royal advisor down.

“Papa,” Maka says.

“Papa?” Soul chokes, stumbling over a few notes.

“Maka.” Spirit stands.

The cards floating at Maka’s fingertips begin to burn from their corners until nothing remains, white ash falling around the witch. Soul does not understand what is happening. From the white ash at Maka’s floating feet – floating feet?! – a glowing white sigil burns itself into the floor. Her hair fans out behind her, eyes now white and blazing with her light. She speaks again, voice wavering and small.

“Papa,” she whimpers. “You – you messed everything up. You made Mama leave, and – do you know how hard it is to grow up all guarded in some castle that’s way too big, without – without your mother?”

“Maka, sweetie,” Spirit scurries to Maka’s feet, reaching up towards her. “We can talk about this. We’ve missed you – I missed you.” His eyes shine with the light of the white inferno that grows in Maka’s palm. “I know it was hard.”

“It was so hard,” she whines, voice cracking. “You made everything hard. Mama loved you and you cheated, and you messed everything up, and she left. I want – I want it to be hard for you, too.”

By now Soul stops playing. It feels weird to continue – well, even weirder, because he feels like he’s watching something he shouldn’t. But, more importantly, it looks as though Maka is about to burn her apparent father alive.

“I know, and that’s what I deserve, I know,” Spirit coos. He didn’t seem like much of a guy before, Soul thinks, but looking at him now on the brink of death from his daughter’s hands, he does seem rather fatherly. “But – and think of it this way – she left you behind too, right? Not just me. And – and wouldn’t this make things even harder later on?”

Oh, good grief. Soul rises from the piano bench. “Maka! You need to listen to me. You need to calm down,” he calls out. “Your, um, dad loves you.”

Light shines too bright in her hands. He has to shield his eyes.

“Soul!” She turns her formless eyes to him, and for a blink Soul sees the gold-flecked wings and limbs of narrow-eyed angels huddled around her. “I didn’t want to do it.”

Oh, Death. Okay. He is going to fix this, even though he is not sure how, and his plan starts with punching rolling up his sleeves and punching through a window. The glass catches against his skin, dragging slicing down his arms.

“Sorry about your window,” Soul babbles, running in front of Spirit, who reasonably does not respond to the apology. “Maka, I need you to hit him.”

“What?”

“WHAT??”

“Hit him, Maka!” Soul shouts. “Just, uh, trust me!”

“Okay . . . I’m going to do it, Soul,” Maka warns.

“HUH?”

Maka winds her arm back, the huge, burning white ball rolling in her palm like her own little sun to kill her father with. Soul watches her arm carefully, blooding gushing from his glassy cuts.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” Maka says. She pitches her arm forward, and the great, searing light soars downwards. As he sees her arm bend, Soul wills forth his blood, stretching a black shield of it outwards in front of him. The light and the dark blood collide, the former sizzling and bubbling against Soul’s blood. He concentrates, thickens his blood, and the light continues to ooze against it before fizzling out, falling to the carpet in a light flame that Soul stamps out. His bloody wall falls.

And Maka blinks.

She plummets to the ground, and this time, Spirit is waiting to catch her, arms outstretched. Eyes empty and green, she looks up at Spirit as her body clatters into his hold. Soul bends over himself, hands balanced desperately on his knees, wheezing. Maka blinks again.

“Hi, Papa,” she says softly.

“Hey, Maka,” he replies, equally as soft. “I was wondering where you were.”

“I’m here.”

“I am also here,” Soul heaves. “And I would like to ask for medical attention.”

“Oh! Soul!” Maka jumps immediately out of Spirit’s arms and bows at Soul’s side, smoothing white light over his arms. “I can’t believe you punched a window.”

“And who is this, Maka?” Spirit asks, inspecting Soul as though he isn’t injured.

“Oh, I meant it when I said I was the Witch of Death Village, Papa. And he’s really my apprentice, Soul. He’s really good,” she says, sealing his open skin with her magic.  
“And is this what you were up to all this time? Witching around? Up to no good?” Spirit pokes a finger at Soul’s arm, and it only vaguely hurts with Maka’s help.  
“I don’t know about no good. Wit and wickedness, I’d prefer,” she jokes.

Soul is sure of one thing, now – not that he is cursed, or that he understands Maka whatsoever, but that her wit and wickedness is a major understatement. He huffs, collapsing down into the plush carpet of the parlor. “That and then some.”


End file.
